It has been an amazing year. We saw things we had never seen before, took the longest road trip imaginable, with 5 people, 2 dogs and a cat in a mini-van, saw breath-taking sights, and began an adventure in the beautiful land of Alaska.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

As do most families, we take a break in the middle of the school year. Whether it is a Winter Break, Christmas Vacation, Holiday Break...whatever you call it - this break is very convenient. It gives me a chance to go through my Homeschool Planner, and look over where we are in our lessons. I can see how many lessons we have left in each subject, change my "projected" dates of completion for each subject, and spend time beginning preparations for the next school year....like I mentioned in This Post.

Then I look at my list of items that I will need for curriculum the next school year, and begin finalizing plans for specific subjects.

I also go through all of the school work that the kiddos have done so far. I look at their notebooks - are they falling apart? Are they almost full? We often start the second half of the year with new notebooks for their work.

Sadly, in the house we are currently living, we don't have a room to use as a classroom. I am used to having a room set aside with a classroom table, and all the bookshelves right there with all the books, our school supplies, whiteboards, etc all right at our fingertips. Like this one...

Or this one...

But in this house, the school table is the kitchen table. The whiteboard hangs on the kitchen wall, bookcases are in the living room, and supplies are assigned to a "school closet." It is a shelved closet just off our kitchen, kind of like a second pantry.

I keep the school closet organized with these handy-dandy pencil boxes that you can get at the stores the beginning of the school year for about 50 cents.

Some of these pencil boxes, I have had for years - but they make things so convenient. I prefer ones that are sort of see-through, and I write what the contents are, on the end of the box. It only takes a second to find the pens & pencils, or the science slides.

So I go through the "school closet" and look at all of those supplies. Do we need more pencils? Erasers? Pens? Science supplies?

Needless to say, I take this mid year break to get our second wind, get re-organized, and begin the new calendar year, and second half of the school year refreshed and ready to go!

If you homeschool, do you have special things you do this time of year?

I love to get an early start on planning for the next school year. Some people think I'm crazy, some think I'm waaaay too organized.

But selfishly, when my kiddos are on their "summer vacation," Mom wants to be on summer vacation too! ...Especially up here in Alaska where the summer is way too short to be spent indoors!

So at the beginning of the school year, I start penciling in a list of materials I may want to use the NEXT year. I keep it on a sheet of paper in my Homeschooling Planner. I make notations of prices and where to order them as well. If I see a used copy on sale somewhere, I'll know right off it is a deal to be scooped up too.

About my Homeschool Planner...

The name of our homeschool is "Elucere Academy." It used to be "Shining Light Academy" but I thought that sounded too elementary school-like. With my kids getting older, and one graduating shortly, I thought it needed a change. And so Shining Light became Elucere. Which is actually Latin for "a light that shines forth; to stand out." Very fitting.

I keep all of my important homeschool things in here, like HSDLA information, and print materials....

When we lived in NC, I kept state-required information, like Attendance Records, Standardized test results, and our irreplaceable "peach card" that the state of North Carolina sends us, confirming our registration.

Now that we live in Alaska, those kinds of records aren't necessary, (Unless you are part of one of the state-run "homeschool" programs....which I am not....that's a whole other subject) but I still have all of my old records in here. I also have a tentative calendar with the projected days of school and breaks, with the estimated dates that each subject will be completed. This is not set in stone, but is only an estimate.

And so.....as January rolls around, I have taken my prospective curriculum list from pencilled, to inked. And the end of January, or beginning of February, I start ordering the curriculum.

As it comes in, I break it down into individual lessons, and then determine the number of lessons needed per week to complete it in the the set days of school the next year. I put all of these lesson plans on paper, and keep them in my binder, organized with the little tabs on the side.

I don't break the lessons into weekly plans, until the week prior. Instead each subject is broken down into a list of lessons.

At the beginning of the week I take whatever lessons are next, and put them onto a weekly schedule. I only do this each week, in case more time needs to be spent on a particular subject or sometimes things come up, like spur-of-the-moment field trips, or army life events.....like Daddy coming home from Afghanistan. Now that we are in Alaska...the weather might suddenly be nice one day, and we could take advantage of it and get out of the house for the day. So we keep our flexibility in our schedule. But it all gets done, and nothing is missed.

This is our system, and it works for us.

That's the great thing about homeschooling...the flexibility given to each family, to figure out what works for them.

By the way....if you aren't familiar with it and you are a homeschooling family with a blog (or just want to see more about homeschooling), the Carnival of Homeschooling is taking submissions for the next Carnival. Click the image below to find out more!

You can see this week's carnival, hosted by Janice Campbell - who just so happens to be talking about planning as well!

*Any opinion I give is my own. It is the truth, the whole truth and nothin' but the truth. I make no promises that you will agree with anything I say, enjoy any recipe I cook, or care for anything I use, read, eat, etc. You are welcome to hate anything I love, or love anything I hate. Free will is a wonderful thing. The End.